


tell me some things last

by bluesey



Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: Exes, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, about feelings and shit, because remember kids! communication is key, this is just basically maya and lucas talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-08-08 13:40:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7759948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluesey/pseuds/bluesey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You still love him?"</p><p>She doesn't reply, the answer thrashing and flailing, like a wild and living thing, in the base of her throat. Because of course she does. Of course she still loves Lucas. But that doesn't matter anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	tell me some things last

**Author's Note:**

> an anon wanted a fic based on the cast beach pic released like 2 weeks ago, so. here it is.
> 
> title from heal by tom odell

“You can hold my hand, you know.”

“No I cant, actually.”

“What, did I suddenly contract a disease that'll kill you if you touch me? Or am I just so horribly repulsive? You're wishing death on me right now, aren't you.”

Maya rolls her eyes and sighs something long-suffering. “Jesus, Lucas, I don't remember you being this dramatic when we were dating.”

“Can you please just – _hold my hand_ ,” he repeats through his teeth, his eyes flickering across the living room where their friends are getting ready. “They'll think it's weird if we're not. You know how they are - always trying to get into our personal business.”

“God – _Fine_. Fine. If it'll get you to shut the fuck up,” she mutters as she grabs his hand a little too harshly, but she doesn't miss as he fails to hide his smile. “This is what you wanted, isn't it? This was your excuse to touch me. Really, huckleberry, way to be subtle.”

“Maya, this was _your_ idea, remember?” he shoots back, leaning just a little bit closer to her. She'd be lying if she said she hasn't missed the warm, solid weight of his arm pressing into hers. “You didn't want to tell our friends about the breakup until after our annual beach trip, remember? You, Maya Penelope Hart, thought this was a good idea.”

She just scoffs and tries not to pay attention to the way his hand fits so nicely in hers. “Minor details.”

“So if you want to pull this off, you have to be willing to try,” he continues, “to – to act like how it was before.”

Maya bites her lip when she hears the slight waver in his voice but she doesn't mention it.

They broke up three months prior, when she'd told him that she wasn't ready to be in a fully committed relationship yet because she's got years of abandonment issues and an inferiority complex she needed to sort through. But that doesn't mean Maya’s never loved him, or that she's stopped. She hopes he doesn't think that, although she wouldn't blame him if he did.

“Hey, we're all going down to the beach,” Zay calls out to them, throwing a towel over his shoulder as he drags his surfboard with his free hand. He's the only one in the group who figured out that Lucas and Maya were no longer LucasandMaya, which is something that is not at all surprising. “You lovebirds need a moment to yourselves? We have bunk beds in the cabin, you know.”

Maya rolls her eyes at his smug and all too-knowing grin. “Bite me, Babineaux.”

“You know where to find me, sugar,” he exclaims as he leaves the cabin, Riley and Farkle right behind him in their bathing suits and colored pool noodles. Sarah and Smackle are already down at the beach, setting up the blankets and chairs so they can have a picnic together.

Once they're gone, Maya shoots up from her seat, ripping her hand from Lucas’s in the process. “Look, I'm just gonna - I'm gonna go and – “

“Maya.” He stops her with a hand on her arm and she flinches away. The break up’s only been working out for her because they don't see each other all that much so they haven't really gotten the chance to talk. Even though they go to the same college, their class schedules and work hours make sure that they rarely cross paths. But now, sitting with him, holding his hand, it feels like ripping off a scab that hasn't had the chance to fully heal yet. “Don't you think we should at least talk about it?”

“Talk about what?” she says, slipping her feet into her sandals and swiping off her shirt, leaving her in a bikini and denim cut offs. She grabs her surfboard that's leaning against the wall. She'd do just about anything to not look him in the eyes. “There's nothing to talk about.”

Lucas sighs and runs his hands through his hair. “Fine. Run away, ignore the problem. That's what you do best, isn't it?”

She turns around to glare at him, stalks over to him to poke at his chest with her pointer. “Hey, that's not fair. You don't get the right to talk to me like that.”

“At least I'm trying to talk at all,” he says with a glare to match her own. But then his eyes soften a moment later, and he huffs in frustration. “Just tell me what I'm supposed to do here, Maya. Because you know that I still – I _still_. And I need you to tell me not to hope for anything out of this.”

Maya blinks away at the surprise, swallowing a little too loudly, and takes a step away from him.

And she's stuck. One on hand, she wants to stay, to explain the things she couldn't before, maybe, or at least ask if he hates her even a little. She wouldn't blame him for that, either. And on the other, she wants to run, run, run. Run so far that she would never have to see that look on his face again, like she's made him physically exhausted. Maybe she'd learn to forget his face when she left him that first time, too.

He nods, like her distance and hesitation is an answer in itself.

“Lucas, I – this isn't – “

“Got it. It's fine.” He grabs his towel that was draped across a chair, pulls a hoodie over his head. “Look, Maya, I'll still pretend to be your boyfriend, if that's what you want. It's easy to be in love with you. But, please, please just stop avoiding me. If it's because you're trying to protect me, because I still have feelings for you, don't. We were friends before all this happened, weren't we?”

“Yeah. Yeah, we were.”

But that was back then, before all these stupid feelings got in the way. After all that, after knowing what it's like to hold his hands and kiss his mouth and hear his quiet declarations of love when no one is listening - it's going to be hard to go back to the before.

But still, Maya’s having trouble looking at him. She's not sure why she can't just admit to him that she still loves him, will probably always love him, when he's just admitted that he still loves her too. She figured she was over that. Maybe she's more fucked up than she thought.

When she doesn't say anything more, he nods again and tells her he’ll be down at the beach if she needs him. He doesn't wait for her as he leaves, and that's fine, because she needs some time to collect herself. She's sure she's left a mess of her heart on the floor to clean up.

*

It's just Maya and Zay out in the water, letting the waves carry their boards farther away from the shore. She tastes the salt on her tongue, the sun hot on her bare shoulders, and realizes too late she'd forgot to put on sunscreen. Lucas always used to help her out with that.

“Hey, gorgeous,” Zay greets as he paddles over to her, slapping a hand on her knee and giving it a shake. “You doing okay?”

“I'm fine,” she answers.

He pauses briefly before: “I’m no therapist, but I've heard talking about it helps.”

“Really, Zay, I'm fine. Everything's fine.” She tries to give him a smile but his grimace in response is enough to tell her that she should probably work on her acting skills around him.

He lifts an eyebrow at her. “No one knows that you two broke it off. You can't keep this kind of shit inside, Maya.”

She remembers the night she came home from Lucas’s, after she told him that maybe they shouldn't do this anymore. Remembers how she cried into her pillow all night, her mother rubbing circles onto her back until she fell asleep, and she woke up the next morning to go to Topanga’s for breakfast with Riley like nothing had even happened, like she hadn't just sliced two hearts straight down the middle with a dagger for a tongue.

Maybe it's because if she talked about it, then that would make it real, and she'd have to acknowledge the fact that she wouldn't be waking up next to him anymore. That she wouldn't be standing in his kitchen, in his shirt, brewing instant coffee as he flipped pancakes, his hand always reaching out for hers, always needing to be touching her whenever he had the chance.

“I broke up with him,” she says. “I don't have the right to be upset about it.”

He clicks his tongue at her like he thinks she's being ridiculous, and she really doesn't have any room to argue. She's pretty sure she has enough material to teach an entire class on how to be pathetic. “What are you talking about, of course you have the right to be upset. And I know you, Maya. Everything you've ever done has always been justified.”

“Not this time,” she tells him. “I got scared, so I left. End of story.”

“You still love him?”

She doesn't reply, the answer thrashing and flailing, like a wild and living thing, in the base of her throat. Because of course she does. Of course she still loves Lucas. But that doesn't matter anymore.

“Maya. Do you?”

Her mouth stays glued shut.

Zay runs his tongue over his teeth and he squints at her. It unnerves her, how he always makes her feel like he's looking at her through microscopic lenses when he does that. “You should talk to him.”

“I can't, Zay. I can't. I hurt him. I hurt him and he should hate me because I deserve it.”

Her hands start tapping anxiously against her surfboard, so she sits on them instead. She sees Lucas in the distance, laughing at something Smackle said, biting into a sandwich that Sarah made. It's stupid and ridiculous, that she let someone mean this much to her in the first place.

“That's bullshit and you know it,” Zay says. He shoves at her shoulder lightly. “And, okay, maybe you still have some shit to work through on your own, but don't let the poor kid go on thinking that you don't love him anymore when you do.”

She glares at him because – because what else is she supposed to do. “I hate it when you're right,” she whines, kicking her legs in the water a little childishly.

Zay grins, all teeth, and splashes water at her face. “Come on, sugar, get your ass back up on your board. I have to beat you again.”

*

Throughout the day, Lucas stays true to his word and acts like the best boyfriend Maya could have ever asked for. He holds her hand when they sit together, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles, lightly kisses the top of her head when she's in the middle of a conversation with Riley, bites back at her remarks like they used to do. It feels so easy to be with him like this.

And when he smiles at her, fond, like he used to, it hits her just how much and how hard she's missed him, like a phantom limb. And she's not entirely sure how much longer she can keep this up anymore.

No one has even noticed anything different.

But it hurts more than she thought it would, knowing she gave all of this up.

She leans into his side while they're all sitting in a circle on Sarah’s blanket. Sarah and Smackle, subtle in their affection, hold onto each other's pinkies as they laugh at one of Zay’s horrible jokes that no one wants to admit they find funny. Riley’s lying on her back, her head pillowed on Farkle’s stomach as she idly runs her hands up and down his thighs. And Maya wants that again, casual affection without a cost. She thinks she's ready for it.

“Lucas, can we talk?” she whispers to him before she loses all her courage, bunching her fist into the bottom of his shirt.

She feels him tense up for a second, but then he brushes his fingers against her side. “Sure. Let's go somewhere else.”

Maya stumbles up, wiping the sand off the back of her shorts and grips her hand around Lucas’s forearm.

“Where you guys going?” Riley asks. “We're just about to play heads up! I've gotten really good at the pop culture category.”

“Start without us,” Maya says offhandedly. “We’ll be right back.”

“Don't forget to lock your door,” Zay calls out as Maya and Lucas start walking farther away, growing smaller with distance. “No one wants to walk in on that! You nasties.”

Maya flicks him off without turning around and his laugh scares off the birds.

They sit by the fireplace when they get inside the cabin and it's silent for a while as Maya tries to gather her thoughts with him so near her. God, but she can't stop thinking about how she's fucking missed him. He was good to her, and she'd ruined that because she was afraid. She'd spent her entire life afraid of losing the only few good things she's ever had, and isn't it ironic that she’d willingly given one up in the end.

Maya takes a deep breath, folds her hands on her lap and doesn't look at him.

"Remember - remember when, before we were even together, when I was going through some stuff with Riley. And then I found out my dad died and I didn't know what I was allowed to feel because he'd hurt me but he was still my dad and death just really fucking _sucks_. And then your parents were going through a separation so your dad bought you a car as a guilt gift, and we took it out the first night, and you let me drive it, even though I'd just gotten my license a week before, but we didn't care if we were to get into an accident because we were sad and we were fucked up. And then we came back to your house at four in the morning and we sat at the kitchen table eating Cheerios until the sun came up – you remember that? - and it was quiet and the sun was bright on your face.”

He nods to let her know that he's listening, his hands clasped between his knees and his shoulders hunched. She hates that so much, that he has the urge to try to become smaller when he's around her now.

“But even with all that stuff in the way clouding my mind, with all that confusion and grief, that moment, in your kitchen - that was the moment I knew, with absolutely clarity, that I loved you. I wasn't certain about a lot of things back then, but I was sure of that."

Lucas flicks his eyes up to her, and they soften once he sees her sincerity. "Maya, we were 16. That was - "

"Three years ago. I know."

"You should've - why didn't you ever tell me?"

She's never been really good at talking about her feelings, but something about Lucas has always made her want to be honest.

"Because, Lucas, don't you get it? I was fucking scared as hell, I still am. I was - it was a hard time for me, and you've always, for some reason, been there, you know? You always had my back and I was afraid that if I - if I told you how I felt about you, that you wouldn't feel the same. That I would lose you because of it - because I couldn't control my feelings. That was it, I guess. I was used to being in control of things, but this was different. This was new. And I didn't know how to handle it, how to fix it. Because with everything that happened during that time, with my parents and with Riley, I just felt like...I don't know, like losing you would be the hardest thing I'd have to survive."

“I’m not sure if that's true,” he says with a shake of his head. “You're the strongest person I know, Maya. You would've been fine.”

“Yeah, yeah I guess I would have. But that doesn't mean I liked imagining my life without you in it. So I thought. I thought breaking up with you would be better for us. Because I was selfish, and you were too good of a thing for me to want to lose. So I know it's all my fault, okay? I know that, and I'm sorry.”

His head snaps to face her when her voice breaks her apology in half, and she wants to be strong like he said she was, but she's so tired.

“It kills me that I hurt you and I can't fix it. And you can hate me, I’ll understand, I deserve it, but I just – I just need you to know that it wasn't because I didn't love you enough, or that I stopped, because I didn't. It wasn't about that. It wasn't about you.”

Lucas closes his eyes briefly before focusing them on the cracks in the wood paneling. “Fuck,” he mumbles, rubbing the back of his neck. “You're not selfish, don't ever say that. And I don't blame you, Maya, and I don't hate you. God, I can't believe you thought that I could ever hate you.”

Maya hears him inhale, sees his hands fidgeting on his lap. He's nervous, and she knows this because, next to his eyes, his hands have always been his biggest telling point.

“But you kinda broke my heart, you know? And I spent so long wondering what I did or didn't do, if I could've changed something, or – or been better for you, given you what you needed to make you stay.”

“You were so good, Lucas,” she tells him, resisting the urge to reach out to him by curling her hands into fists. “You didn't do anything wrong, you have to know that.”

He doesn't say anything for a while, and her heart lodges in her throat in a panic as she begins to wonder if she's just made a huge mistake. But then his hand reaches up, strokes the stray hairs away from her face, thumb resting at the edge of her jaw. His eyes are soft and warm, like they always are when he looks at her.

She wants to tell him. “And I – and I still – “

“Please don't say it if you don't mean it.”

So she needs to tell him. “I never stopped, Lucas.” She feels her throat burn with the admission but she fights through it anyway. “I never stopped loving you.”

Maya doesn't breathe as he stares at her, probably wondering the validity of the statement, and she hates that she's the one who put that doubt in his mind. That she could ever not love him is so ridiculous she could almost laugh if she had the appropriate amount of oxygen flowing through her lungs.

But then he smiles, crooked and bashful, and that means everything. She takes his hand in hers, holds it for a while.

“I missed you,” he tells her.

She leans forward, bumps her head against his shoulder, and noses at his collarbone. “Yeah, me too. I’ll kill you if you tell anyone I said this, but you're kind of an easy person to miss, huckleberry.”

He kisses her temple when she rests her head on his shoulder to hide his smile.

“I'm sorry I was super shitty.”

“I wouldn't say _super_ shitty. Mildly shitty.”

“Do you forgive me?” she asks, soft and unsure.

“Yeah, of course,” he responds like it’s obvious. “Don't be ridiculous, of course I forgive you.”

“You know, for future reference, I can't promise that I'm gonna be good all the time,” she tells him. If she's letting a good thing back into her life, Maya’s going to make sure she's never going to do anything to ruin it again. One way is this, by letting him make the decision. “I can't promise that I'll always be kind because I'm still learning how to let all of that anger go. And, you remember how it is, I'm not the easiest person to be around. But I can promise that none of that will ever be directed at you.”

Lucas gives her a half-smirk, the one she's missed so much in the last three months that she's filled up every page of her sketch book with it so she never forgets it. “It's funny that you think that. No, it's a little sad, actually. Because you are an easy person to be around, at least to me, and I don't mind that you aren't always nice. I like that about you. I like everything about you, Maya. Even the parts that you don't, even the parts that you're working on, because without them you wouldn't be who you are right now. And you're the best person I know.”

“God, that was so gross and cheesy, I never wanna hear it again.” She fakes a vomit and punches his shoulder, lightly. “We're seriously gonna have to work on your confessions of your undying love for me because I'm pretty sure there's a Hallmark card with those exact words written on them.”

He laughs, and it's probably the best sound she's ever heard.

Lucas doesn't kiss her like she wants him to, but it's fine, they'll get back to that at some point. But they hold hands as they walk back to the beach, and Maya feels so much lighter than she has before, something like hope blooming in the center of her chest. It's a new feeling. She finds that it's not so bad.

“Hey!” Riley shouts as they get closer, waving her hands excitedly. “Hurry up, we’re taking pictures!”

It's getting late, the horizon already swallowing the last bit of sunlight left, so Lucas hands over his hoodie to her, shoving it over her head and laughing as the fabric gets stuck in her mouth.

“ _Guys_ ,” Riley whines, impatient.

“Y'all good?” Zay asks from behind the camera, eyebrows raised expectantly.

“Let's do a Maya and Lucas,” Smackle suggests and hops onto Sarah’s back once she got the okay, before Maya could ask what that means, wrapping her arms around her neck.

Maya lifts an eyebrow as she watches, a slow smile stretching on her face when she sees Riley jump on Farkle’s back and press a loud kiss to his cheek before turning to smile at the camera.

She turns to Lucas, who's already looking at her. “Ready?”

“If you are.”

So Maya jumps on his back and he catches the back of her thighs easily, like clockwork. “Just like old times, huh, Ranger Rick?” she whispers into his ear, just for him.

She feels his laugh under her hand before she grabs a fistful of his shirt. “Yeah, Maya. Just like old times.”

Zay shows them the picture afterward, while they're all lounging around a bonfire together like how it should always be, and she can't help but grin at his smile. Glad that she's the one who put it there. 


End file.
